`Do you mean that you think you can find out
the answer to it?' said the March Hare.

`Exactly so,' said Alice.

Image: Maria Kirk - 1904

Image: Sir John Tenniel - 1865
1890 Nursery Version

`Then you should say what you mean,' the
March Hare went on.

`I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at
least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

Not the same thing a bit!'
said the Hatter. `You might just as well say that "I see what I eat"
is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'

`You might just as well say,' added
the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get
what I like"!'

`You might just as well say,' added
the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe
when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

`It IS the same thing with you,' said
the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent
for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens
and writing-desks, which wasn't much.

The Hatter was the first to break the silence.
`What day of the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice: he had
taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking
it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Alice considered a little, and then said
`The fourth.'

`Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.
`I told you butter wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily
at the March Hare.

`It was the BEST butter,' the March
Hare meekly replied.

`Yes, but some crumbs must have got in
as well,' the Hatter grumbled: `you shouldn't have put it in with the
bread-knife.'

The March Hare took the watch and looked at it
gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it
again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first
remark, `It was the BEST butter, you know.'

Alice had been looking over his shoulder with
some curiosity. `What a funny watch!' she remarked. `It
tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!'

`Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. `Does
YOUR watch tell you what year it is?'

`Of course not,' Alice replied very readily:
`but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time
together.'

Image: Bessie Pease Gutmann, 1907

`Which is just the case with MINE,' said
the Hatter.

Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's
remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly
English. `I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as
she could.

`The Dormouse is asleep again,' said
the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.

The Dormouse shook its head impatiently,
and said, without opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what
I was going to remark myself.'

`Have you guessed the riddle yet?'
the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

`No, I give it up,' Alice replied:
`what's the answer?'

`I haven't the slightest idea,' said
the Hatter.

`Nor I,' said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might
do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking
riddles that have no answers.'

`If you knew Time as well as I do,'
said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.'

`I don't know what you mean,' said
Alice.

`Of course you don't!' the Hatter
said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke
to Time!'

`Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied:
`but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.'

`Ah! that accounts for it,' said the
Hatter. `He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms
with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance,
suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons:
you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a
twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!'

(`I only wish it was,' the March Hare
said to itself in a whisper.)

`That would be grand, certainly,'
said Alice thoughtfully: `but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you
know.'

`Not at first, perhaps,' said the
Hatter: `but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.'

`Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice
asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. `Not
I!' he replied. `We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad,
you know--' (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) `--it
was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!"

You know the song, perhaps?'

`I've heard something like it,' said
Alice.

`It goes on, you know,' the Hatter
continued, `in this way:--

"Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle--"'

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began
singing in its sleep `Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went
on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

`Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,'
said the Hatter, `when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering
the time! Off with his head!"'

`How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed
Alice.

`And ever since that,' the Hatter
went on in a mournful tone, `he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six
o'clock now.'

A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is
that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

`Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter
with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things
between whiles.'

`Then you keep moving round, I suppose?'
said Alice. `Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get
used up.'

`But what happens when you come to the
beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask.

`Suppose we change the subject,' the
March Hare interrupted, yawning. `I'm getting tired of this. I vote the
young lady tells us a story.'

`I'm afraid I don't know one,' said
Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.

`Then the Dormouse shall!' they both
cried. `Wake up, Dormouse!' And they pinched it on both sides at
once.

The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. `I
wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: `I heard every
word you fellows were saying.'

`Tell us a story!' said the March
Hare.

`Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.

`And be quick about it,' added the
Hatter, `or you'll be asleep again before it's done.'

`Once upon a time there were three little
sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were
Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'

`What did they live on?' said Alice,
who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

`They lived on treacle,' said the
Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

Treacle is.... a by-product of refining
sugar, a bit like like molasses. If you were to try to live at the
bottom of a well and eat nothing but molasses you'd feel rather ill
yourself.

Alice tried to fancy to herself what such
an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much,
so she went on: `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'

`Take some more tea,' the March Hare
said to Alice, very earnestly.

`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied
in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'

`You mean you can't take LESS,' said
the Hatter: `it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.'

`Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said
Alice.

`Who's making personal remarks now?'
the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Alice did not quite know what to say to this:
so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned
to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. `Why did they live at the
bottom of a well?'

The Dormouse again took a minute or two to
think about it, and then said, `It was a treacle-well.'

`There's no such thing!' Alice was
beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went `Sh! sh!'
and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, `If you can't be civil, you'd better
finish the story for yourself.'

`No, please go on!' Alice said very
humbly; `I won't interrupt again. I dare say there may be ONE.'

`One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly.
However, he consented to go on. `And so these three little sisters--they
were learning to draw, you know--'

`What did they draw?' said Alice,
quite forgetting her promise.

`Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without
considering at all this time.

`I want a clean cup,' interrupted
the Hatter: `let's all move one place on.'

He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse
followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice
rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. The Hatter was the
only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal
worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into
his plate.

Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse
again, so she began very cautiously: `But I don't understand. Where did
they draw the treacle from?'

`You can draw water out of a water-well,'
said the Hatter; `so I should think you could draw treacle out of
a treacle-well--eh, stupid?'

`But they were IN the well,' Alice
said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

`Of course they were', said the Dormouse;
`--well in.'

This answer so confused poor Alice, that
she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it.

`They were learning to draw,' the
Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very
sleepy; `and they drew all manner of things--everything that begins with
an M--'

`Why with an M?' said Alice.

`Why not?' said the March Hare.

Alice was silent.

The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this
time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter,
it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: `--that begins with
an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness-- you
know you say things are "much of a muchness"--did you ever see such a thing
as a drawing of a muchness?'

`Really, now you ask me,' said Alice,
very much confused, `I don't think--'

`Then you shouldn't talk,' said the
Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than
Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the
Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the
least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half
hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them,
they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

Image: Sir John Tenniel - 1865

`At any rate I'll never go THERE again!'
said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. `It's the stupidest
tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'

Just as she said this, she noticed that one
of the trees had a door leading right into it. `That's very curious!'
she thought. `But everything's curious today. I think I may as well go
in at once.' And in she went.

Once more she found herself in the long hall,
and close to the little glass table. `Now, I'll manage better this time,'
she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking
the door that led into the garden. Then she wet to work nibbling at the
mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocked) till she was about a
foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and THEN--she found
herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and
the cool fountains.